Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett
Pixel Palace, who co-commissioned Radio Boredcast along with AV Festival, recently interviewed Vicki to see how she is getting on with creating a one-month long radio station to compliment AV Festival 12 and the festival them As Slow As Possible.
http://www.thepixelpalace.org/basicfm
The website is dead now, so here’s a copy of the interview.
People Like Us “The Magical Misery Tour”
Brighton Sallis Benney Theatre
8pm
Cinecity / Brighton Film Festival, UK
Saturday 19th November 2011
People Like Us will perform The Magical Misery Tour at Cinecity, part of Brighton Film Festival.
http://www.cine-city.co.uk/films/the-magical-misery-tour-people-like-us-live-set/
People Like Us – Magical Misery Tour at Bristol Encounters International Film Festival.
Cube Cinema, 4 Princess Row, Bristol, UK BS2 8NQ
20:00 17/11/2011
Doors 7:30 £6:00 advance (watershed only) £8:00 on door.
Bristol Encounters
People Like Us will perform The Magical Misery Tour at Bristol Encounters International Film Festival 2011.
Look Behind You!….. She Is Back! Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us raids the tombs of HORROR films, plundering the Un-Dead and cutting up scared suburban teenagers amongst many victims into a delicious perverse A/V set which premiered at The Sound of Fear at the Southbank Centre under the working title of Horror Collage.
The source material is 95% from horror movies, with the content portraying not so much a scary nightmare but a journey through the underworld of everyday human experiences. It is not true to say you do not relate to this kind of horror movie. Truth is stranger than fiction. Having said this, People Like Us, as ever, see the positive and sometimes humorous side of the most ghastly scenarios, and by accompanying the edited found feature film footage with new sample collage pop songs, elevate you from the swamp.
Also on the same night:
AKI ONDA
Aki Onda is an artist whose musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. He captures field recordings with the cassettes and then physically manipulates the tape machines with electronics in his performances to mesmerising effect. Strikingly poetic with ghosts of the physical, and invisible captured in his sound world, Onda re-examines moments of time he has spent wandering and recording. Maximising the micro-narrative/diary-like elements contained in his performances Onda fits perfectly a film festival.
Onda started making music with the sampler and computer, and formed Audio Sports with Eye Yamatsuka (of The Boredoms) and Nobukazu Takemura in Osaka in 1990. He then became a sought after producer before starting his travels and recording his cassettes, taking photos and collaborating.
People Like Us “The Magical Misery Tour”
Corona Cork Film Festival
Friday 11th November 2011
We are very pleased to present The Magical Misery Tour at Cork Film Festival, Ireland. Details of time and venue to follow shortly.
Cork Film Festival
Wednesday November 2nd from 9.30am to 11.15am NY time
(that’s from 1.15pm, UK people!!) on Ken Freedman’s show on WFMU
Ken airs two videos live on the air and the website. From 9:30 to 10am, listeners can watch and listen to People Like Us’s new horror collage The Magical Misery Tour. Then, at 10:15 Ken previews Radio Soulwax’s new Brazilian video/audio mashup-sterpiece, Batutas Disco. Listeners can listen over the radio, or watch and listen over the website. Links will appear at wfmu.org when each video goes live. People Like Us and Radio Soulwax will each discuss their work following their videos.
RadioVision Festival
28th, 29th and 30th October, 2011
Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, NYC
WFMU presents a festival celebrating radio’s future as it takes on new forms in the digital age for the medium’s fans, tinkerers and future thinkers. A special opening night performance with Radio Legend Joe Frank, a day of talks, panel discussions and performances, and a hack day for programmers and digital media makers. The festival runs concurrent with the WFMU Record Fair.
Vicki will be speaking at the conference on Saturday 29th October.
Full details at http://radiovision.wfmu.org
Sunday 30th October – People Like Us present The Magical Misery Tour at WFMU Record Fair, NYC
3.15pm The Metropolitan Pavilion, NYC
http://wfmu.org/recfair/rf_livebcasts.html
People Like Us will screen two films at Merge Festival 2011 on London’s Bankside. Both films “Trying Things Out” and “Skew Gardens” are London-themed/based.
Date: 20th October 2011
Website: tapeworm.org.uk
Address: The Bear Pit, Bear Gardens, SE1 9EB London
Announcing a special evening of Bankside performances curated by The Tapeworm, as part of the Merge Festival.
London Town’s finest cassette-only label, The Tapeworm, presents its third annual event in the Capital. Exemplary music and much excitement is to be expected from a line-up of the label’s mates.
Mr Ken Hollings, a writer of note, shall be reading his text from the first Bookworm publication, to be launched on the same night. Sweden’s BJNilsen will be flying in and making a splendid noise for you all. A second Swede, CM von Hausswolff (he’s a King, dontchaknow…) will share a stage with Touch’s Mike Harding, in a reading of Edgar Allen Poe like none before… Cult vs. occult – former Medicine Head man Peter Hope-Evans and illustrator Savage Pencil will whip up a dark blue storm. Mr Pencil’s fine drawings shall also be on display. Hopping on the bus from Elephant & Castle is Zerocrop and his band; pop perfection from a local lad. And finally, a London eye – video installation by Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us.
Exhibition featuring work by Savage Pencil and Vicki Bennett Friday 21st – Sunday 23rd October 12 – 6pm
http://www.mergefestival.co.uk/programme/worm-eats-bear-special-evening-performances-tapeworm
People Like Us perform Genre Collage
Almost Cinema at Vooruit, Ghent
11 October 2011, 8pm
http://vooruit.be/nl/event/2905
Also on the bill – the film about Ken Kesey “Magic Trip“.
Happy Halloween!
Thursday 6th Oct 6-9pm
at MAIDEN
188 Shoreditch High Street
E1 6HU
People Like Us will be showing a 15 minute edit of The Magical Misery Tour through the month of October at Maiden on Shoreditch High Street, London.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN is a month long celebration of horror and classic horror figures in popular culture. An exciting group of artists, illustrators and graphic designers have been invited by MAIDEN and EAST END PRINTS to re-imagine classic horror characters in an innocent and playful way. Artwork featuring well “loved” characters from all of our favourite scary movies will cover the walls of the basement at Shoreditch’s favourite shop MAIDEN.
Philip Sheffield/People Like Us/Bangkockney Belle/Jennifer Camilleri/Jess Wilson/Anthony Peters/Dan Kitchener/Miguel Martin/Nicole Thompson/Dale Edwin Murray
EAST END PRINTS is a part of First Thursdays.
People Like Us are currently developing a new live A/V set with a working title of Horror Collage*.
*Please note – this new live set now has a permanent name of “The Magical Misery Tour” – more details here.
People Like Us – “Horror Collage”
Live A/V performance from Vicki Bennett/People Like Us.
Sourcing from over 100 horror movies, People Like Us reflect upon narratives that occur and repeat within the horror genre. By grouping common concepts, and creating contextually related sample music compositions, entirely new stories emerge.
Horror Collage will be premiered at The Purcell Room in London’s Southbank Centre on
3rd September 2011 at “Sound Of Fear”.
We recommend you book tickets NOW for Sound Of Fear Part 1 via the link below, or contact the Southbank Centre box office on Box Office on 0844 875 0074. The Purcell Room isn’t that big and the festival may be quite popular – so you have been warned!
http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/sound-fear-musical-universe-horror
Interview with Sound and Music here
http://www.soundandmusic.org/features/sound-film/five-questions-people-us
Vitrine Gallery, Bermondsey Square, London
Fri 29 July – Sun 04 Sep 2011.
Daily 24‐hour. FREE.
Preview: Thursday 28 July 2011. 6‐10pm.
Vitrine Gallery presents The Doors of Perspection, an exhibition of new digital collage works by Vicki Bennett. The works are created using a unique technique developed by Bennett to expand film scenes beyond their conventional screen ratio. The finished results reveal beautiful panoramic views of the background landscapes as captured by the panning camera, effectively allowing film scenes to be seen as never before.
Bennett’s new works bear a relation to the British Vorticism movement of the early 20th Century, taking a Futurist approach to image making whilst attempting to capture dynamic movement with still images. Bennett often utilises digital technology to apply analogue techniques and for more than a decade has used rotoscoping in her short films and live audio‐visual performance to mask, cut and place objects elsewhere on screen. During her commission for The Great North Run Cultural Programme 2009 she developed the process for expanding film outside its frame and began work on this new series shortly after.
This exhibition not only features large prints for sale on site at Vitrine Gallery, but also a special print edition featured here:
https://peoplelikeus.org/2011/print-edition-by-vicki-bennett/
Title: Streetwalking
Medium: C-Type Print on Matt Fuji Archive Paper
Dimensions: 914mm x 321mm
Year: 2011
Edition: 100 + 5 A/Ps
Title: In Retrospect
Medium: C-Type Print on Matt Fuji Archive Paper
Dimensions: 671mm x 392mm
Year: 2011
Edition: 100 + 5 A/Ps
Co-published by Modern Empire and Vitrine Gallery
Bennett is renowned for her audio‐visual collage, successfully releasing albums and touring her live performances under the name People Like Us since the early 1990s. Her Surrealist approach to creating moving image work involves subverting elements of found footage in order to create new meanings and connections. This is reflected in the titles of her works, albums and exhibitions, where letters slip around and one slight twist can create an absurd change of meaning.
The Doors of Perspection is curated by Iain Pate. The exhibition is commissioned by Touch.
Since 1991, British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audio‐visual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio. People Like Us believe in open access to archives for creative use, and have made work using footage from the Prelinger Archives, The Internet Archive, and A/V Geeks. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, Barbican, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over a million listen again downloads since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.
People Like Us are currently touring their live audio‐visual set ‘Genre Collage’ and a new album, ‘Welcome Abroad’ was released on Illegal Art in May 2011.
Preview Event: Thursday 28 July 2011. 6‐10pm. Shortwave Cinema, Bermondsey Square. FREE.
A collection of short films by Vicki Bennett/People Like Us ‐ including Excerpts from “Genre Collage” ‐ will be screened on loop throughout the evening, with an introduction by the artist at 7pm. There will also be musical accompaniment provided by Osymyso and Mainwaring & Jurgensen in the bar.
Full list of films being screened at the Preview Event ONLY:
“Burning” [1999]
“Discovering Electronic Music” [1999]
“Music Of Your Own” [1999]
“We Edit Life” [2002]
“Nothing” [2003]
“The Remote Controller” [2003]
“Resemblage” [2004]
“Story Without End” [2005]
“Trying Things Out” [2007]
“Live Excerpts” [2002-2007]
“Work, Rest & Play” [2007]
“Skew Gardens” [2008]
“Parade” [2009]
“Mull of Kintyre” (with Ergo Phizmiz) [2010]
Excerpts from “Genre Collage” [2009/10]
“The Keystone Cut Ups” (with Ergo Phizmiz) [2010]
“2’00” The Movie” [2011]
VITRINE GALLERY Bermondsey Square, London SE1 3UN (tube: London Bridge) www.vitrinegallery.co.uk
Review: http://www.frontrowreviews.co.uk/news/vicki-bennett-the-doors-of-perspection-preview-report/9758
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-doors-of-perspection–picture-preview-2328362.html